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Blandings - the logo of www.blandings.org.uk, the Companion to the works of P G Wodehouse

The Riviera Girl

A musical

Book:Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse
Lyrics:P. G. Wodehouse
Music:Emmerlich Kalman (and one song by Jerome Kern)
Origin:The Gipsy Princess (Die Csárdásfürstin) with book and lyrics by Leo Stein and Béla Jenbach (1915).

First produced 24 September, 1917 at the New Amsterdam Theatre, Broadway, New York (78-100 performances).

(The UK production in 1921 had book and lyrics by Arthur Miller and Arthur Stanley.)

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78 performances may not seem many by today's standards but an advert for a playbill indicates that the show went out on the road, at least to Boston, MA.

I cannot find why the London version was a fresh adaptation. It seems odd considering the story is set in Monte Carlo but perhaps there were too many American references in the Bolton/Wodehouse version, e.g. the song 'Let's Build a Little Bungalow in Quogue'.

According to B and W in their book Bring on the Girls, an attempt to revive the show in the 1950s failed because of their libretto.